I don’t mean to do it. I swear I was trying to push her away-to get more distance between us.
But suddenly, I find I’ve pulled her close. Her lips part on a gasp, and I bend her back with a growl. I claim her mouth like a villain. She tastes like honey and spice, and I drink of her like I’m dying of thirst. She shudders against me, melting in my arms.
Fuck. What am I doing?
I can’t do this.
I draw back to take a breath and get a leash on myself, but she grabs my lapels, tugging me closer.
The momentary illusion of control vanishes.
I push her against the wall. I’m two seconds from damning the consequences and ripping off her dress when the elevator doors open.
Thank fuck.
It’s the interruption I need.
I set her back on her feet. We’re on a secret basement level, a short walk away from a private parking space, where Tony is waiting. My voice is barely more than a guttural growl. “
Go.”
It’s all I can say. I don’t manage an apology or an explanation.
Tell her I shouldn’t have done that, and it will never happen again.
Somehow my little assistant recovers quickly. “Right. Going.” She smooths her dress and glides away.
Brick
I force myself to punch the button to make the elevator ascend. With every passing floor, my wolf howls louder. He doesn’t understand. We had our quarry in our arms. Why did we fail the hunt?
When I stride back into the ballroom, humans take one look at my face and scuttle aside, giving me a wide berth. The only one who broaches the invisible barrier is Eleanor Harrington.
She glances around, not bothering to hide her disappointment. “Did your lovely assistant leave?”
“You seem awfully interested in her,” I observe, without answering her question.
“So do you.”
Touch?.
“She’s the best assistant I’ve had.” I’m not sure if I say it because I want the woman I strongly suspect is her paternal grandmother to know what she gave up, or if I’m trying to cover the fact that my interest goes beyond Madison’s role as my assistant. “I won’t let you poach her from me, so if you want to get to know her, I suggest you find another way.”
Eleanor’s startled expression is the only confirmation I require. I save her the trouble of a response and leave before she can ask what I think I know.
Across the ballroom, I meet Sully’s eye and tip my head. He meets me by the bar, and we walk a little closer to the kitchen, away from the guests.
“I need you to look into something,” I tell him. “Regarding Madison Evans.”
He nods. He scents Madison’s natural perfume on my suit. There are no secrets among a pack of wolves. They can smell everything. If I’m lucky, he’ll attribute it to our dance together and not our kiss.
“Is this about the background check Billy ordered?” he asks. “Because that’s complete.”
I stop and wheel to face him. “What’d you find?”
“She was accepted into several grad programs. Harvard, Yale, Princeton. But she took this job instead.”
“Didn’t have the money for grad school?”
“Possibly. But an anonymous donor covered her tuition all through prep school and college.”
“Right. Her father.” Sully tips his head, and I explain, “She told me her father was a wealthy man who knocked up her mother and left. The school funds were probably hush money.”
“That’s my guess. The donor was anonymous. I’m digging but haven’t been able to find anything on either the source of the funds or her father.”
“I might have a lead for you.” I take Eleanor Harrington’s card out of my pocket and hand it to him. Like me, the first thing Sully does is sniff it.
“A family connection?”
“Possibly.” Scent never lies.
Sully pockets the card. “Around the time Ms. Evans was accepted to grad schools, her brother Brayden was accepted to undergrad at NYU. The deposit for his first semester came from Ms. Evan’s bank account. It wiped out her savings.”
I put two and two together. “She’s paying her brother’s college tuition. That’s why she took this job.” That sounds like Madison. Working hard to provide for the ones she loves. I understand that sort of drive.
I’d sacrifice everything for my family, my pack, too.
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Any connection to … anyone I should know about?” We both know I mean the Adalwulfs.
“Not that I can find.” He hesitates. “But she’s smart. Hungry. And she’s on the inside. Perfectly positioned to be a spy.”
The perfect target for someone like the Adalwulfs to try to flip. If they could get her to flip.
“She doesn’t live on much,” Sully continues. “Everything’s going to her brother’s tuition.”
“All right,” I tell him. “Keep digging. I want to know everything about her.” I need to know.
Sully nods. We re-enter the ballroom, where he fades into the shadows, while I head to the bar. I’ve barely gotten my drink before the vultures descend. Guest after guest, some human and some wolf, queuing up to greet me. To kiss the ring.
I force myself to shake hands and tolerate bullshit small talk. I owe it to Ruby. The minutes blend into hours, and I keep going, letting the voices and names and faces blend into one. I do my duty, acting like the perfect host. Just like my parents did before me. It doesn’t matter that I want to be somewhere else. With someone else. My course was set, my legacy written in stone before I was born.
No use longing for what I can’t have.
No matter how many hands I shake, Madison’s scent still clings to my fingertips. I can still feel the graceful sway of her body as she danced in my arms. Her lips, warm and soft against mine.
It will have to be enough.
Madi
I spend the whole weekend trying to wipe my memory of our kiss. The way Blackthroat bent me back, his lips devouring mine. The way he growled when I teetered off balance. The way I clung to him.
It was the best kiss of my life.
The biggest mistake.
And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want it to happen again.
What does this mean for our working relationship? We didn’t just blur the lines, we blew past them like they didn’t exist. Where do we go from here?
There’s a pile of packages waiting on my stoop Saturday morning when Aubrey and I walk back from getting coffee. One of the coveted BFFB gift bags and a gift basket full of blister treatment products.
“What’s this one?” Aubrey holds up a square box wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.
I tear it open. It’s a pair of designer shoes, cute but with a sensible low heel.
“No note?” Aubrey demands.
“No, but they can only be from Brick.”
“Oh, is it
Brick now?” Aubrey waggles her brows. I’ve already given her the entire scoop on what happened last night. “He definitely wants you.”
“Maybe, but he pushed me out of that elevator and told me to go.”
“So he wants you but knows it would be crossing a line.”
“Yeah.”
I want to call him. Ask him where we stand. But I already know, don’t I? He made it clear I wasn’t his date. The kiss was a fluke. A momentary weakness. There’s no reason for me to think it meant anything.
“Let me ask you this,” Aubrey says, rolling the twine between two fingers. “What would you have done if he’d invited you home with him? Would you have gone for it?”
I pretend to consider, but I don’t fool Aubrey.
“You totally would have.”
“In a heartbeat,” I admit. “I would have zero self-control when it came to him. Even though letting things go in that direction has Big Bad Idea written all over it.”
“Just go for it,” Aubrey says. “Wear one of those peek-a-boo dresses and seduce the hell out of him. I dare you.”
An engine starts somewhere inside of me. Not at the dare. At the thought of what Blackthroat would do if I did as Aubrey suggested.
He would definitely react-he hasn’t hidden that my body has an effect on him-a fact I absolutely love to pull out and chew on every night before I fall asleep when I may or may not have my fingers between my legs. I know he wouldn’t fire me over it. He would’ve done it the first time I wore a peek-a-boo dress after he told me not to.
But what would I be goading him into? A torrid office affair?
Ooh, that sounds kinky.
Well, why not? I’m young. I have sexual needs and desires. I’m working for a very hot Wall Street billionaire who has made it plain he’s turned on by me.
Yes, the whole situation will probably implode, but the thought of backpedaling after what happened last night depresses me.
I think I might go for it. Worst case scenario-I get fired or quit because it ruins things. I got this job-I can find another. Best case-I experience some really hot sex with a famous person and have a story to tell for the rest of my life. It’s like sleeping with a rock star while they’re on tour. I don’t expect I’ll mean anything to him, but it’s a merit badge in life experience.
* * *
Brick
Monday, Madison wears the shoes I sent her and another one of those damn window dresses. This time, it’s not quite so demure. Now that she tested me with the outrageous cleavage at the ball, she apparently thinks she can wear a push-up bra with her clingy window dress, and I won’t rip it off and ravish her.
Or maybe that’s what she wants.
That idea makes my dick so hard I have to stay in my chair and watch while she sashays around the office. I can’t even see straight, I’m so wound up. I’ve been that way since the kiss Friday night. I’m barely functional.
I stay in my office all day, avoiding getting too close to her.
That apparently pisses her off because she makes excuse after excuse to barge in, bring me things, leaning over my desk to give me excruciating views of her cleavage.
Finally, I can’t take it any more.
“Ms. Evans.” My voice is dangerous and low. “What are you doing in here?” I get up and stalk around my desk. I’m all predator right now, and she’s definitely my prey. No chance I’m leaving this office without tearing into her. Or sinking into her.
“What do you mean, sir?” Mock innocence.
She definitely wants it.
My gaze drops to her cleavage. “I told you not to wear these dresses.” I back her against the desk, getting far too close. Way up into her personal space. I glare down at the valley between her breasts.
She has the audacity to trace the inside window with her fingernail-still painted brick red from the ball. Slowly. Caressingly. Then she stops in the center and slides her finger down between her beautiful mounds.
I can’t stop myself. Fighting back my wolf’s need to conquer is an impossibility. And we’re alone here. The closest person is a floor away.
I snatch her wrist and bend her arm behind her back, turning her face down over the table. My other hand claps down on her ass before I can stop myself. Hard and firm. And then it stays there, my fingers tightening in a slow squeeze.
Her gasp still rings in my ears, but when she speaks it’s with the same silky voice she always uses. “I don’t recall this reprimand outlined in the employee handbook.”
“You’re still running that pretty little mouth, hmm?”
“Mmm. What’s the punishment for that?”
I want to spank her some more, but I don’t trust myself not to be too rough. She’s human. Fragile. Instead, I turn her back around and claim her mouth with a brutal kiss. It’s hard and punishing, my tongue lashing between her lips, my grip on her nape unforgiving. I devour her soft lips, drink in the taste of her. It does nothing to alleviate the throb of my cock pressing against my trousers.
Forcing myself to pull away, I pick her up by the waist and sit her on my desk. My hands slide up her thighs, underneath the silky fabric of her dress. I stop myself before I reach her panties.
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